Tristan Robert Lange

Beneath the Surgical Sky

Fragments of a Former Self

This isn’t as painful as I thought,

The self-surgical extraction

Carried out with surprisingly steady hands

And steeled determination.

The skin—the outer layer—

Sliced surface-deep all around

The leathery mask falls off in a heap—

My face, raw rivulets of red.

Crimson colors create

A painting with strokes

Sublimely placed in full view

Of cognitively dissonant minds

Housed in cavernous hills

Beneath ominous ontological skies.

Familiar figures now lay me down

And open the shutter

That hides away the nova’s light—

Radiantly bright white light
Illuminating the areas left to

Slice and peel away.

Section by section overtaken

And surgically removed from me

As I lie there—stiff—

Oozing profusely into puddles

Of unrecognizable uniformity,

Unifying my detractors

In their gruesome gorging

Of my remaining essence.

This devilish demise—

Friends, you must realize—

Comes at the cost of compromise

On the foundation

Of who you are.

Beware the shining star

That claims from afar

To know who

You

Are.

Unless,

Like with me,

You wish to find yourself

Dissected—all your parts on a shelf—

Lying in a crimson, plasma sea

Of all the living things

You had hoped

To be.

Like me—

Drowning in the static sea,

Filled with the floating grizzle and gore

Of who I used to be.
A shadowy, sullen, shade

Haunting the prison hallways

Of others’ hopes

And dreams.

© 2024 Tristan Robert Lange. All rights reserved.